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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25586050">Starring Roles in Tragedies, Parallel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses'>amb-roses (overtture)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attraction, Character Study, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Lack of Communication, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Open to Interpretation, Past Ibushi Kota &amp; Kenny Omega, Past Ibushi Kota/Kenny Omega, Post-Break Up, Relationship Study, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Hate, Unrequited Love, ask to tag, the tags talk big talk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:27:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,488</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25586050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hangman Adam Page dreams of feathers. He dreams of the way Kenny's smile creases. He dreams of contentedness.</p><p><em>This isn’t real, </em>Dream-Kenny says, pressing the words into his lips.</p><p>“I know,” he replies. He tells himself, “I know.”</p><p> </p><p>("I'm not him," Adam's voice is tight, restrained. "I'm not. I'm me."</p><p>"I know," Kenny tries, wincing just a little when he whirls around with a fierce glare, "I know! I do! I know."</p><p>"Say it."</p><p>Kenny is silent.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kenny Omega &amp; Adam Page, Kenny Omega/Adam Page</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Starring Roles in Tragedies, Parallel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hangman Adam Page dreams of feathers. He dreams of the way Kenny's smile creases. He dreams of contentedness.</p><p>Dream-Adam catches Dream-Kenny as he leaps into his arms, spins them around and around as they laugh, far away and tinny. Dream-Kenny cups his face when they finally stop, and Dream-Adam's hands tuck into all the soft, exposed corners of him, and when they meet in the middle—</p><p>Hangman Adam Page dreams of golden supernovas. He dreams of the way sugar sweetens his mouth, sour twists the lips of a man with dirty golden hair that gleams like a treasure.</p><p>He dreams of his hands finding purchase on warm, familiar skin. Of hands holding him, too.</p><p><em>This isn’t real, </em>Dream-Kenny says, pressing the words into his lips.</p><p>“I know,” he replies. He tells himself, “I know.”</p><p>Kenny isn’t as alive as his dream self. He’s tired. Dodgy. Movements too sharp, too slow, hyper-aware, or deaf to the world around him.</p><p>Adam doesn’t like to think he loves appearances over anything else, but Kenny doesn’t shine like he used to. Adam wonders if maybe he’d just been enchanted by how unattainable he’d been so many years ago, but then he catches it.</p><p>The words that pour freely on good days, in empty hotel rooms, when he thinks Adam is sleeping. The energy of him when just the right conversation at just the right time manages to catch him in the mood to give his two cents.</p><p>Adam can see the scars, though, too. Give his voice the right inflection, touch his shoulder a certain way, say the right introduction, and Kenny whirls around with another man’s name of his lips. Begging on the tip of his tongue.</p><p><em>oh-ah... </em>He sighs into his pillow, hands fisted into his blanket, face twisted with nightmares. <em>Kota...</em></p><p>Adam reaches for him anyway, a sleep-numb hand smoothing down the back of his shirt, tracing patterns until his breath evens out and he stills once more.</p><p>Hangman has always been a partner.</p><p>From the moment <em>Hangman </em>is born, he is a friend, he’s a partner, he’s a confidante, he doesn’t step a toe outta line unless it’s asked of him or it’s to save one of the Club, because Hangman, for all his bastardous actions, is a partner.</p><p>He has to be dependable. He has to be relatable. He has to be easy to talk to, but not boring. He has to be enough, but not so much he’s better than the backdrop he plays. He has to be a best friend, but not one that disagrees.</p><p>Hangman wants to tear himself apart. He wants to scream and bleed and hurt, hurt himself, hurt others because he can’t feel anything at all.</p><p>He has to be durable. If he gets hurt, if he feels hurt, he can’t acknowledge it. It would be a waste of time. It would distract them. It was a play for attention and that’d label him as weak.</p><p>Everyone knows what happens to weak members of the Bullet Club.</p><p>Adam wants to leave. He wants to fly. He wants to run, run, run away. He can’t do that, though. There are hooks in his wings, great chains that slither and wrap and constrict.</p><p>Matt’s terror.</p><p>Nick’s worry. </p><p>Cody’s frustration.</p><p>Kenny’s tears.</p><p>Adam stays.</p><p>And so, the caged bird sings.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Kenny spends his life reaching. For what he has, possessively. For what he’s lost, desperately. For what he wants, frantically.</p><p>Adam can’t deny their relationship has always been a mutual one, occasionally straying into something commensalistic, even lesser to something parasitic.</p><p>It’s a strict sort of thing. It’s need and want. Pull and push. Tug of war between two equally strong forces, albeit in different ways. One active and one passive at all times, shifting back and forth between which one was which.</p><p>He loathes that for how frenzied Kenny scrambles for him, he reaches back twice as feverish. Kenny was the one who was supposed to reach for him, after how long Adam chased him. So how come when he finally gets his wish, it’s hollow?</p><p>Muscles strain. Bones creak. Joints pop and grind. Kenny throws his head back, reaching towards the light for his star.</p><p>He calls his name.</p><p>The hand stops, fingers twitching. The light clears.</p><p>Hangman stares down at him, face twisted and pale as a sheet. He looks distressed. He looks betrayed. He looks like he always does, another one bites the dust, one more knife in the back to compliment the collection, he looks-</p><p>Adam looks away.</p><p>One. Two. Three.</p><p>The match is over. Kenny blinks and he’s gone from the apron.</p><p>Adam walks. Not away, never away, but as far as the chain will let him.</p><p>He lets himself into the room. He changes out of his gear. He sits on the edge of the bed, farthest from the door. He waits, and waits, and waits, until his numbness retreats at long last with his adrenaline. It leaves him cold and wanting.</p><p>The wanting is familiar at least. An old friend. The age-old fury rises around it, protective, riled, bitter in the back of his throat. It knows it’s own futility, and despite that, it still bristles when the door opens quickly and closes slowly.</p><p>Silence follows the click of the door.</p><p>His fury knows it’s too late. The top-shelf bottle’s been uncorked. It’s spilling all down the counter, dripping off the bar in heavy streams as it gushes. It’s everything he has to try and plug the hole, but it still screams out through the gaps in his metaphorical fingers, pressure building.</p><p>It escapes his teeth against his will.</p><p>"I'm not him," Adam's voice is tight, restrained. "I'm not. I'm me."</p><p>"I know," Kenny tries, wincing just a little when he whirls around with a fierce glare, "I know! I do! I know."</p><p>"Say it."</p><p>Kenny is silent. He searches Adam's eyes for a long few seconds, even as he must see that if Adam were any other man, he would've stormed off.</p><p>As if Adam would go anywhere no matter the words, answer or no. Whatever he sees makes him straighten, though, voice quiet but no less fierce finally shattering the space between them with deadly force.</p><p>"You're not him. You were never him, and you'll never be him. You're you, and there's nobody else I want," he says, his confidence returning with each statement. He crosses the room with slow, measured steps. He reaches the bed, sitting on the other side, parallel to Adam.</p><p>Kenny reaches forward, fingers brushing his jaw. Adam flinches, and he nearly gets away with yanking his hand back completely as though burned, but rough, wide hands grab his. One around his wrist, one cupping the back of his hand.</p><p>He jerks it towards him sharply, forcing Kenny to scramble closer to close the distance, and slower, gently, lifts it.</p><p>He curls his fingers just a little as Adam hesitantly tilts his head to cup his hand over his cheek, rests his face in the soft of his palm.</p><p>Kenny's heart turns over. Adam grits his teeth against his hand. His own pumps feebly as it gushes and gushes.</p><p>“I hate you,” he spits like a swear.</p><p>“I know,” Kenny says.</p><p>“I <em>hate you,”</em> Adam swears like a prayer as he shakes under his palm.</p><p>I think I love you, Kenny tries to say, mourning what was and what would never be. I think I only know how to be in love with your suffering and everything about you I can’t hold. “I know,” he says instead.</p><p>“I hate... I hate you,” he snarls lowly, turning as though he’s trying to hide the hot tears bubbling in his eyes. He says it like a promise, “I hate you... so... <em>so fucking much.”</em></p><p><em>I’m sorry, </em>he wants to say. It’s a limited, perishable phrase. It means less each time you say it and it’s easy to get tired of. But he means it. And Adam is crying. And Kenny doesn’t know how else to help. He’s not sure he can help at all. This might not be something that could be helped.</p><p>I hate you for making me stay, Adam wants to say. I hate you for hurting me, again.</p><p>I hate myself for staying, he wants to say. I hate myself for being hurt, again. Again, he wants to wail. But he won’t give Kenny any more than what he already has his hands around.</p><p>I love you, Kenny wants to say. I love you, I love you, I love you. You hate me. You love me. I love you.</p><p>I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, he wants to say. I’m so sorry I’ve failed you so thoroughly. I’m sorry you only know how to hate me.</p><p>Adam doesn’t put any of that into words, however, and neither does Kenny. Instead-</p><p>“I know,” he says. He tells himself, “I know.”</p>
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